Earlier this year, we noted that 60 Minutes should consult actual Canadian Morley Safer when doing a cover story on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
60 Minutes said goodbye to Safer last night in a tribute — Morley Safer: A Reporter's Life — that aired after the regular episode as he wraps up an amazing journalism career.
Safer, 84, has been with 60 Minutes since 1970, 46 of the 48 years of the existence of the CBS newsmagazine.
Safer worked for the Sentinel Review in Woodstock, Ontario after graduation from the University of Western Ontario. His next job was as a staff reporter at the London Free Press.
After a stint in London, England, Safer came back to Canada in 1955 to work at the CBC. He worked as an editor and then foreign correspondent. Safer was producing and appearing on camera for CBC's Newsmagazine. Safer went to work at CBS in 1964, reporting on the Vietnam War and then serving as London bureau chief until coming to 60 Minutes in 1970.
The special did talk about his Canadian childhood and young adult life. They referred to the CBC as "Canada's premier broadcasting network" when talking about how Safer was hired as a news writer at age 24.
Safer had appeared on a CBC show Year of Change at the end of 1963. CBS noticed Safer from that broadcast, starting his extensive CBS career.
When the cameras showed Safer's 60 Minutes office, we saw a piece of Canada: a Toronto Blue Jays cap.
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"To an outsider, these shows are another planet: part dazzling, part rocky horror show. Models who seem as angry as they are emaciated wearing clothes fit for a cadaver."
Morley Safer is one of the most intelligent, well-versed people on television, much less in journalism. Safer traveled all around the world to chase stories from serious to offbeat.
Safer rode the Orient Express train from Paris to Istanbul, sailed on the Indian Ocean to a tiny island called Furudu to Finland where he looked into why the Finnish tango was a trend.
He was known for being humble with a great sense of humor.
"What you're aiming at are people's ears more than their eyes. The impact is what you're saying, not so much what they're seeing."
Safer did a lot of that, including 3 tours in Vietnam before coming to 60 Minutes. When Safer reported on U.S. soldiers burning down huts in a small Vietnamese village, he earned an enemy in then President Lyndon Johnson, who wanted Safer to be fired.
Safer's most significant 60 Minutes story, and his personal favorite is Lenell Geter's in Jail from 1983. Geter, an engineer at E Systems, had been convicted of armed robbery of a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Greenville, TX and was sentenced to life in prison. Safer and producer Suzanne St. Pierre went through and systematically tore apart the prosecutor's case and talked to witnesses that weren't pursued.
We also got personal tidbits such as being such a good poker player that he bought a Bentley with poker winnings while living in England.
Safer finished his 60 Minutes career with 919 stories, but only one of them in this TV season, a March profile of Danish architect Bjarke Ingels. Safer will still have an office at CBS, a perk that Mike Wallace also received upon retirement.
60 Minutes airs on CHCH/Hamilton and CBS stations available to Canadians via cable, satellite, and over the air. If you missed or want to rewatch the Morley Safer retrospective, click here.
photos credit: 60 Minutes/CBS
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